Battery warning after bin lorry fires

Emergency protocols called for the material to be dumped and the fire service called

Residents are being urged to dispose of batteries carefully after a series of bin lorry fires in Nottingham.

In the latest example on Friday, a recycling truck had to dump its load on to Roden Street in Sneinton after a fire broke out inside the vehicle.

The cause was found to be a rechargeable power bank that had been wrongly put in a household recycling bin.

The city council said this was the sixth fire inside a vehicle that its waste and cleansing team had faced this year and appealed to householders to take electricals and batteries to recycling points.

Rechargeable batteries are found in many everyday devices, as well as standalone battery packs

City officials said one of the other fires had been caused by an entire e-scooter being put in a recycling bin.

A spokesman said: "Lithium batteries, which are found in almost all rechargeable items, can combust when crushed and mixed with flammable materials such as paper inside the collection vehicle, causing a fire inside the collected loads of up to 15 tonnes of waste or recycling.

"When this happens, the collection crew have no choice but to execute emergency procedures - ejecting the entire load on to their current location of Roden Street to protect the vehicle from further risk of fire damage, with the fire and rescue service sifting through the huge pile of recycling to find and extinguish the cause before it spreads to the rest of the material."

It is not known where the power bank was collected from, the spokesman said.

No-one was injured in the fire and damage to the £250,000 vehicle was "limited".

The council said recycling points could be found online and batteries were accepted at the household waste recycling centre on Redfield Road.